Water District Shift May Help Newhall Ranch

In the timeless battle over water in Southern California, it represented a mere droplet in a murky legal sea.

But the ripple effect from a little-noticed policy shift could ease the way for construction of the largest development ever approved in Los Angeles County.

Even as it remains party to a lawsuit that has halted the massive Newhall Ranch project, a Ventura County water district has aligned itself with the developer on a key component of a plan to guarantee water to the 60,000 people who could live there upon its completion in 30 years.

The water district now agrees that the developer should be allowed to divert and store storm water from nearby Castaic Creek.

The shift by the United Water Conservation District came in March, as a Kern County judge was weighing arguments in a lawsuit filed by Ventura County and United against Los Angeles County, seeking to block progress on Newhall Ranch. The proposed 21,600-home community in the Santa Clarita Valley abuts the Ventura County line.

The judge sided with Ventura County, ordering a halt to Newhall Ranch until the developer could satisfy the judge on six key issues, water availability among them.

In his ruling, Superior Court Judge Roger D. Randall said, “The project can only meet its water demands if it also utilizes flood flow from Castaic Creek.”

Randall did not consider United Water’s policy shift in his ruling, because it was not part of the official record used by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in approving the development.

It remains unclear whether the state will approve the diversion plan, whether it will satisfy the judge or whether the developer can alleviate the other five concerns and restart the project. But any plan that might help guarantee water availability is seen as crucial to overcoming the legal barriers facing Newhall Land & Farming Co.

“We have no objection to their getting the water they need,” said Dana L. Wisehart, United’s general manager.

The lawsuit, she said, was filed to force Newhall Ranch to prove that it had enough water before houses were built. Even with the creek water, Wisehart said she believes the developer must secure additional water to meet the project’s eventual demand.

Suit Said Creek Not Realistic Water Source

In the lawsuit, Ventura County and United had argued that creek flow is not a realistic water source. Not only had Newhall Ranch failed to win state approval to divert the water, but Newhall also had proposed a storage method that the judge found scientifically unproven.

Ventura County officials fear that, if more ground water is pumped in the Santa Clarita Valley, the water level in its underground basin will be lowered, a concern that water suppliers in the area adamantly deny. There is no scientific evidence to support either position.

“I don’t believe that Ventura County will ever see any decrease in water supply in the Santa Clara River,” said Robert J. DiPrimio, president of Valencia Water Co., which would supply water to Newhall Ranch and is wholly owned by the developer. “They are just trying to stop the project.”

Randall also required further study of the project’s environmental impact on area wildlife and plants and the river corridor, as well as a look at its effect on traffic congestion in Ventura County.

The state dammed Castaic Creek in the 1970s to create Castaic Lake and gave downstream property owners the rights to some of the excess rainwater held in the lake. The state’s agreement with four property owners, including Newhall and United, requires the water to be released into Castaic Creek, from which it would flow into the ocean. The owners now are asking for the overflow to be diverted elsewhere.

Newhall is seeking permission to divert and possibly store its share of the overflow in Castaic Lake; United has asked to divert its portion to Pyramid Lake for storage.

“We didn’t consider it controversial. We considered it good water management,” Wisehart said about United’s decision to join Newhall’s request.

That decision was made by United’s elected board of directors at a public meeting in March, shortly after Wisehart was elevated to the top post.

“I have always felt that amending the agreement was in the best interests of Ventura County and Los Angeles County,” DiPrimio said.

Wisehart said she is seeking state approval to amend the 1978 water agreement, because it will provide more water to Ventura County.

“We were opposed [to the changes] if we couldn’t get water out of Pyramid,” she said.

United serves Ventura County along the Santa Clara River, from the cities of Piru, Fillmore and Santa Paula down to Ventura and Oxnard.

In an e-mail from Europe, Ventura County Supervisor John K. Flynn said Friday that he was unaware of United’s decision and opposes any change in the water agreement. “I doubt the state Department of Water Resources will agree to a change. I am against a change. I do not think that it will happen,” he wrote.

But fellow Supervisor Kathy Long was supportive. “This is a plus-plus for Ventura County,” she said, because the county will also get an additional water supply.

New Strategy May Be Long-Term Threat

Environmentalist Lynne Plambeck said United’s new strategy has only short-term benefits. Once the project is fully built, she said, Newhall Ranch will take more ground water from Ventura County than United’s diversion request would provide.

“If it enables Newhall Ranch, then it’s not a reasonable request from them, because [the build-out of] Newhall Ranch is a far greater detriment to their water,” said Plambeck, a spokeswoman for Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment and an elected member of the Newhall County Water District Board of Directors.

United’s support eliminates a concern among state water officials about granting Newhall’s request without the implicit backing of the creek’s other downstream water users, state water officials said.

“It is definitely an advantage,” said Dan Flory, chief of the State Water Project analysis office. “The department does not want to get between local water agencies.”

There is no timeline for state consideration of the proposal, Flory said.

Newhall officials said it will take about a year of additional studies, planning and public hearings before they will ask the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to approve a supplemental environmental impact report. The lawsuit, which pitted Ventura County against Los Angeles County, was moved to Kern County to avoid conflicts of interest.

Newhall spokeswoman Marlee Lauffer said the firm is optimistic that it will successfully answer each of the judge’s concerns. “We really see these issues as resolvable.”

Developers Have Other Storage Plans

If the state permits Newhall to divert the water but not store it at Castaic Lake, there are other viable alternatives to storage, Los Angeles County water officials said. At least one Kern County water bank has offered to store the excess water, a water bank official said.

DiPrimio said opponents are unfairly trying to use water to stop the proposed development or scale it back.

“They either want to stop growth and they don’t care how they do it, or they don’t like Newhall Land,” he said, arguing that enough water exists to build the project.

“We feel we have the financial ability to bring about the project, to make water available to the new development,” said Robert Sagehorn, general manager of Castaic Lake Water Agency, a public body that supplies state water to Valencia and three other Santa Clarita water retailers.

Ventura County officials are particularly sensitive, because local farmers over-pumped their aquifers in the last two centuries, resulting in salty seawater intrusion into the local ground water that has taken decades of remediation and still hasn’t been fully corrected.

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Proposed Water Diversion

Officials of a Ventura County water district and developers of proposed housing at Newhall Ranch have joined in supporting a plan to store Castaic Creek water. The water district’s share would be stored in Pyramid Lake, Newhall’s in Castaic Lake. The plan has drawn together forces that had clashed over water supplies for Newhall Ranch, the region’s largest proposed housing development.